


Rendezvous

by Severina



Category: Dark Harbor (1998)
Genre: Community: smallfandomflsh, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 15:38:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1823584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She doesn’t know you the way I do, David.  She can't do the things to you that I can.  She can't make you feel the way I can."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rendezvous

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomflsh community for the prompt "quaint". Pre-Movie. The young man in the film doesn't have a name, so I've christened him James.
> 
> * * *

"Look, David. Isn't it darling?"

David glances at the statue, which resembles nothing less than a reclining toad. 18th Century would be his guess, and no doubt ridiculously overpriced in this quaint little town with its wooden boardwalks and clapboard doll houses. He also has no doubt that it will soon be sitting on the bureau in their master bedroom, staring at him with its repugnant bulging eyes while he tries in vain to sleep. 

"Darling," he repeats.

He tries to keep his tone neutral, but Alexis looks up sharply at him anyway. "Don't be mean, David."

"I'm not being mean, Alexis," he says, but she's already turned away, intent on the statue's odious charms. He leans back on his heels, stifles a sigh. He has better things to do than drive halfway across God's creation so his wife can flutter over an expensive trinket in some bucolic backwater. He feels his eyes glazing over as Alexis natters on, flits his gaze around the crowded shop in an attempt to focus on something besides her pointless inanities. The ostentatious display of brick-a-brack is only matched by the patrons, all of them well-heeled and murmuring softly over dusty trunks or shards of pottery. His eyes flick past an overweight matron, a stylishly dressed couple in their twenties, and--

And then he thinks his heart stops.

The boy is standing by an oversized vase, one hand reaching out to touch its smooth curves, his scruffy jean jacket and tennis shoes out of place among the weekend-chic of the elite. He draws one finger along the edge of the vase, licks his lips. And then he must feel David's eyes on him because he lifts his head, gazes at him through the long fringe of his bangs. His slow smile is brazen, cocky. 

David turns quickly back to Alexis, his heart stuttering as it tries to regain its natural rhythm, his palms suddenly damp. But his wife has her head bent in discussion with the shop owner, lost in the woman's fabricated tales of ancient dynasties and archaeological digs. David risks another glance in the young man's direction.

James crooks a finger at him before slowly stepping behind a tall shelf lined with ratty first editions. 

David swallows dryly, has to clear his throat before he can speak. "Sweetheart, I'm just going to—" He waves a hand in the general direction of the bookcases, because for the life of him he can't imagine what he would actually find interesting to look at in this distasteful little shop with its pretentions of grandeur. 

"Hmm?" Alexis glances up, blinks at him for a moment before his words register. "Yes, look around, darling. I'll be a while."

His legs are wooden stilts, his footsteps loud and clunky as he makes his way across the room, every attempt to look casual making him feel awkward and obvious. He side-glances the society matron as he passes her, sure that she has figured out exactly what he's doing, that she'll gasp and point at his conspicuous assignation behind the bookshelves. And though the woman barely looks up from the spindle she's admiring, there is a thin line of sweat creeping down his spine when he finally darts behind the towering shelves. 

His young man is leaning against the wall, arms crossed at his chest. "Took you long enough," he says. 

"What on earth do you think you're doing here?" David hisses.

"I think I'm surprising my boyfriend with a weekend fling," the boy says. He shakes his hair out of his eyes, raises a considering brow. "Or do you prefer lover?"

"I prefer you back in the city where you belong," David bites out. "And keep your voice down!"

"Why? Afraid your wife will come investigate?" James asks. He pushes off from the wall, but when he bites at his lower lip David recognizes the false bravado for what it is. The boy no more wants to be discovered than he does. "You were supposed to call me last weekend," he continues. "You didn't call."

"Something came up," David says. "I can't always be available whenever you—"

"You're available now."

David sighs. "Alexis is—"

"A shrew. A tyrant. An alcoholic. She doesn’t know you the way I do, David. She can't do the things to you that I can. She can't make you feel the way I can."

David can feel the heat coming from the boy's skin, the scent of James that makes him light-headed and weak-kneed. He clenches a damp palm, forces himself not to reach out and brush the long hair out of the boy's eyes. 

"She doesn't love you the way I do, David," James says softly.

David's stomach jumps at the words and he gives in, reaches out to touch. "James—"

"I rented a room outside of town, at the Motel 6," the boy says. He reaches out in turn, runs one slender finger down the centre of his chest. Just a single finger, but it leaves a fiery trail wherever it touches, and David sucks in a shaking breath, equally eager and afraid of where that questing finger will end up. But the boy stops his heady descent at his waistband, looks up at him again from beneath his shaggy bangs. "You can take me there. And then something can really come up."

He pictures laying the boy out on the gaudy floral bedspread, having his way with him to the rattle of eighteen-wheelers flying by on the interstate while the late afternoon light filters through the threadbare curtains. He imagines all that creamy young flesh, pliant and eager in his hands. He shifts uncomfortably when his dick twitches with interest, and knows James is aware by the boy's slow, lazy smile.

"I can't," he gasps out.

James says nothing. But it doesn't matter. David knows right then and there that he's lost. 

"David?"

David jerks at the sound of Alexis's voice. "Coming!" he calls out.

"Not yet, but soon," James murmurs before he moves off.

"Are you all right, David?" Alexis asks as she rounds the shelving. "That's the third time I've called your name."

Her eyes are wide and concerned, and he has a brief moment of shame for what he does. Not for who he is, because he can no more change that than he could change the colour of his eyes or the pigment of his skin. Then he sees the box under her arm, and knows without asking that it contains the ridiculous statue. Another useless, meaningless _thing_ to clutter their lives, to mask the fact that together they have nothing. And any guilt that he feels drifts easily away.

He twists his face into what he hopes is a gruesome smile. "Not feeling very well, darling," he says. "Must have been something I ate." 

"Oh no," Alexis croons. "It must have been the shrimp. I knew that something was off when it arrived on your plate at lunch. Didn't I say something?"

She didn't, of course. David is surprised that she even remembers what he had for lunch, given that she had downed three whiskey sours by the time he was halfway through his entrée. But he nods in agreement. "I should have listened."

"Well let's get you back to the hotel," Alexis says. "I'll call Richard and Carole to tell them we can't make it to dinner—"

"Don't do that," he interrupts quickly. "There's no reason why you can't go without me."

"Are you sure? I don't want to leave you all alone when you're sick, poor thing."

"I'm sure," he says firmly. "You've been looking forward to seeing them all week. Go on and enjoy yourself."

"Only if you're absolutely certain, David," she says.

"I'll just get some Pepto and gravol, I'll be zonked out before you've started your appetizer. Don't worry about me."

The words are barely out of his mouth before she's nodding, and he can already see the gleam in her eye despite her grave expression. They've been married a long time, and he's been able to read her for longer than that. She'll have forgotten all about his "upset stomach" by the time they've uncorked the wine. And it'll be long past midnight before Richard and Carole deposit her, loose-limbed and giddy, at their hotel room door.

"All right, then," she says. She plants a chaste kiss on the side of his mouth. "Feel better, darling."

The bell above the door jangles a discordant tune, and he glances up in time to see the boy's denim-clad back as he exits the shop.

"Oh," David says slowly, "I will."


End file.
